1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus aiming at reducing print cost, a control method of the same and a storage medium for the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
A technology for saving the number of papers used in printing by reallocating objects contained in a document data is known as print saving processing. The print saving processing is a kind of layout change processing. This layout change processing generates a blank area in a page by bringing movable objects existing in the same page to one side in a single direction of the paper such that they do not overlap with other objects. Then, a movable object existing on a page next to the current page in which the blank area has been just generated is moved into the blank area of the current page without destroying the location order of the objects. Consequently, the moved object is printed on a page preceding the page where it should have originally been printed. By repeating this processing of generating the blank area, it is possible to reduce the number of pages used in printing the document data. Because the print saving processing can save the number of papers used in printing, the print cost can be reduced, thereby achieving a printing operation which takes care of environment issues such as paper usage.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-140766 has proposed another technology which addresses print cost. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-140766 discusses a print data generation method in which, when allocating plural pages to printing papers, its color pages are allocated to a single paper if possible. More specifically, first, as to a target document data page it is determined whether it is a monochrome page or a color page. After the determination, the pages determined to be color pages are allocated collectively to a single print paper. Further, at the time of the allocation, the respective pages are laid out without destroying an order of their pages. As a result, the number of papers used in color printing can be saved.
In the above described print saving processes, the number of papers to be printed in color has not been taken into account. In other words, even if the number of papers can be reduced by generating a blank space in the print saving processing, the number of papers to be printed in color can be increased. Such a problem of conversely increasing the print cost has not been considered.